Change and the Feminine Mystique

Change, we are told (correctly) is inevitable, and essential within our culture. No surprise then that even femininity has changed, for women have become more like men (I am simply observing, that's what writers do). Women today are more assertive, more competitive with men (often out-performing them); many women speak the coarse language that was once a male prerogative. Women are as frank about sex as men. Have you read Cosmopolitan Magazine the past decade? More women than men write about orgasms. Away, women have scored! Baking cookies and making jam as a stay-at-home mom is no longer the role model. Why? Blame or bless the Women's Rights Movement. Gaining victory in the work place -- women now out number men in some of the once traditional male occupations --augmented by the disciplined effort that scratched out a greater equality with men in managing the household; campaigning for and winning political office on a wide, and almost to the level of Presidential, scale; and workouts in the gym for vigorous muscle-building and martial arts exercise.

Change is rarely instantaneous. It is most often slow. It is the early women's rights marchers, in their seemingly sedate, long dresses who rebelliously took to the streets, that led the way to bigger demonstrations and more yelling, by contemporaries marching in shorts and sometimes foul-sloganed t-shirts, bringing women out of the anonymity and subjugation that marred the lives of many millions to do more than simply fill the shoes of men. Through the work they choose, votes they cast, leadership they provide, and children they still raise up, women have also fashioned new shoes to march in with pride.

Change is good but one thing will never change. Some people will always prefer vanilla, others chocolate.

More Later, Joe

(For those who may not know, the Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by Betty Frieden in 1963 after a questionnaire she sent to her classmates from Smith College, class of '42, revealed a lack of fulfillment in the lives of women which was generally kept hidden. )